Tuesday, Day 2 at the Children's home, part 2

This post will continue with what I saw on our second day at the Children's Home. If you haven't read part 1, you should read that first. (Also note, I have had no time to proof read these post so please forgive any grammar errors).

Around the other side of the Children’s Home, Mike started some AWANA games. There were probably between 25-30 kids playing games. The enthusiasm in which they played was a glimpse into their culture. Boys were aggressively diving into the middle to grab the pin (which is how you win a game) and knees were banging into heads as they dove in. Close by, Phil, Kent and others were playing the carnival games.

Children were playing with balloons like they were treasured toys, again just a sign of the poverty that a toy that is seemingly worthless to us in the U.S. was treasured by the Mexican children. We played games until it was time for lunch.

Lunch today was “Yum Yum Chicken” – shredded chicken mixed in cheese, green chilies, mushroom soup, and cream of chicken soup over tortilla chips. It was very tasty! I noticed Jose eating today and he seemed upset. He apparently wasn’t happy with what he was given to eat and I saw that he had a bit of tantrum. I guess whether you are poor or rich, children are still children but it was sad to see a boy who probably gets very little to eat behaving the way he was.

After lunch, we had a time of sharing and singing. I had a great time with the kids leading several of the songs we did in Spanish. I think we got them a little excited and I was asked to do one more song to “calm them down”. I decided to do the song Agnus Dei in Spanish – I hadn’t done this song with any of our team before but it is a fantastic song and the words are pretty easy. All of the kids seemed to know the words and it was a great way to end the worship time. Elvia, one of our translators and a very sweet older lady (with a huge heart for reaching her Mexican people for Christ) was very moved by the song and that was encouraging to me (especially when others on the team had a puzzled look when I started the song).

I also can’t forget to mention a fun song that Mike lead – it was called “Making melodies in my heart”. It was great for the little kids because each time you sing it, you add some physical thing you have to do while singing. For example, you start with “arms out, thumbs up” and as we sang it, we’d do a “dance” left and right with our thumbs. The next time we’d do “arms out, thumbs up, elbows in” and sing again. Then we’d add “knees bent” until we’d end it with tongue out which of course had everyone making noise but the kids (and I think our team) had a great time with it.

We then moved into smaller groups. Tami had the idea of doing a very nice tea party with some of the ladies in the home. While I wasn’t a part of that, it sounded like it was a total blessing as Lupe and her family never have time for themselves with so much to do for the children. A bit of an inside joke has been that the women’s ministry time has been taking a long time so the rest of us have needed to keep their children (and in a few rare cases their husbands) busy while the women’s ministry time is happening. On Tuesday, we took the kids back over to the games and played with them more.

I was playing with a few children when a couple of the junior staffers (David and Jeremiah) mentioned to me that there was an elderly man out on the street and could I come talk to him with them. While my Spanish isn’t great, I know enough to have a basic conversation and everyone has caught on to that. My initially feeling was that I really just wanted to play with the kids but I decided to get some water for the man and go see what I could do. We talked with him for a few minutes and he told us about his wife who needed medicine but he was running out and didn’t have money for more. We told him that we just didn’t have money to give him. He told us more about his situation – his home being very run down and not having food for him and his wife. We asked Maria, one of our translators, to help us as it was hard for me to understand some of what he was saying. The man, whose name is Paulo, told us again about his wife and their needs.

After a bit of time, Jeremiah asked Paulo if he knew Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Paulo told us that he has been telling his wife that they need the Lord but that he himself had not ever accepted Jesus. So Jeremiah when through the “Libro sin palabras” – a felt book that is several colored pages where each page allows us to share the Good News with them (we have versus for each colored page).

When Jeremiah finished (with Maria helping translate for us), I told Paulo that we can’t offer him much to help with his need for money but we could offer him the hope of eternal life that we have in Christ. I then asked him if he wanted to have that hope and become a Christian. Paulo said yes. I could see he was touched as his eyes filled with tears. We prayed with him a prayer of salvation and welcomed him as “uno hermano en Cristo” – a brother in Christ. Even now as I type these words, my eyes are welling up with tears at the thought of the hope Paulo now has in Christ.

We told the colonia families that our time with them was done and we said goodbye. We all went into the home and had a wonderful time with the family. First, the kids made frames were and given their pictures I had printed on Monday night. It was a blessing to them and it was a blessing to me to see their joy. We then prayed for them “Mexican style”. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before. Mexican style prayer is when one person starts and ends the prayer time but everyone prays at the same time, out loud. It sounds very different (because it is) but I actually really liked it. After giving the adults a number of gifts, it was time for us to leave. As we were about to go, I remembered that Cameron and I had brought the game “Operation” with us to play and leave with them. We never took it off the bus but I asked Cameron to get it. He presented it to Lupe who was very happy to receive it. I was very moved by all that had happened and in our two short visits, the children had stolen our hearts. It was a very special time and I’m not sure anything we’ll do the rest of the week will be as special as our time with this wonderful family.

We got on the bus and returned to Fabens. During our ride, we all shared about the special things we had seen the Lord do on Tuesday – it was a great ride home (though we seem to be eating dinner later and later each night). I had some things to do to prepare ourselves for the next day’s ministry at the colonia La Campansita and got to bed late.